Background reading for this chapter.
- A CIA assessment of the conflict
Paraphrase of the key judgments of an Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, "Sino-Soviet Competition in Indochina", prepared in the CIA, 14 November 1978.
- A State Department analysis of Vietnam's motives
Paraphrase of a briefing memorandum from the Acting Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research to Secretary of State Vance, 8 January 1979, the day after Phnom Penh fell.
- Thailand watches the Vietnamese advance
Paraphrase of a telegram from the US embassy in Bangkok to the State Department, 4 January 1979.
- China prepares to attack
Paraphrase of the minutes of a US National Security Council meeting on the Sino-Vietnamese conflict, 16 February 1979.
- Lee Kuan Yew writes to Carter
Paraphrase of a letter from Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to President Carter, 1 March 1979.
- a Vietnamese diplomat explains the Soviet treaty, November 1978
Extract from the US record of a meeting in New York, 30 November 1978, between US official Robert Oakley and the Vietnamese representative (named "Co" in the record) in talks on normalising US-Vietnamese relations, four weeks after Vietnam signed its treaty with the USSR. Secret. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XXII, document 33. A US government document in the public domain.
- Deng Xiaoping briefs President Carter, 29 January 1979
Extract from the US memorandum of conversation of a meeting between President Carter, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and their senior advisers, Washington, 29 January 1979, a month after Vietnam invaded Cambodia. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XIII, document 205. A US government document in the public domain.
- Carter reports Deng's private message, 30 January 1979
Extract from a US memorandum of conversation, Washington, 30 January 1979, in which President Carter reported to his advisers on his private talk with Deng Xiaoping. China attacked Vietnam on 17 February 1979. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, volume XIII, document 207. A US government document in the public domain.
- the UN General Assembly on Kampuchea, November 1979
Extract from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 34/22, "The situation in Kampuchea", adopted at the 67th plenary meeting, 14 November 1979, on a draft sponsored by the ASEAN states. A UN record.
- a cartoon about the conflict, 1979
An original cartoon drawn for these notes in the style of a Southeast Asian newspaper cartoon of 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and the Chinese attack on Vietnam. It is not a copy of a real cartoon.